Wendy M. Grossman
@wendyg.bsky.social
Freelance writer specializing in computers, freedom, and privacy. New net.wars posting every Friday at https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net. Based London. Folksinger. 2024 CD: https://www.pelicancrossing.net/lasttriphome.htm. Not age-verified here; no DMs.
This week's net.wars, "Journeys through online harms", sees X.AI file suit against Minnesota's law banning nudification technology while reading books by Geertrui Mierke De Ketelaere, Adele Zeynep Walton, and Beeban Kidron: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/07/31/j...
Journeys through online harms
X.AI - the company was-trillionaireElon Musk built in 2025 by smashing together X (the former Twitter) and xAI, which he founded in 2023 - is suing the state of
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "Escaping the sandbox", sees France enact a social media ban, sees VPNs are next, and notes OpenAI's "rogue" AI and its attack on Hugging Face: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/07/24/e...
Escaping the sandbox
This week, France became the first European country to pass a social media ban. Under-15s will be blocked from opening new accounts on social media from Septemb
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "How the other half scams", reads and reviews Soumya Goupta's new book probing India's scam economy, Bharat Bluff: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/07/17/h....
How the other half scams
Years ago, when landlines were still common and Internet shopping was not, I got a phone call from a policeman, who said he was in Selfridges and did I know whe
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
#techgrumps podcast alert 📢 Techgrumps 3.42:: Three thefts don't make a right is now available rss.com/podcasts/tec... archive.org/details/tech... With the voices and strong views from @rnalexander.bsky.social @eastmad.bsky.social @wendyg.bsky.social and myself Enjoy and give us a share
Techgrumps 3.42:: Three thefts don't make a right | Podcast Episode on RSS.com
AI sectionMunich court decision on AI Overviews/Googlehttps://the-decoder.com/landmark-german-ruling-declares-googles-ai-overviews-are-googles-own-words-and-makes-it-liable-for-false-answers/Youtube i...
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This week's net.wars, "Change of plan" notes the abandonment of the world's largest data center-in-waiting, the tale of the Waymo and two 15-year-old boys, and the I-can't-believe-it's-still-alive 2003 case of SCO v. IBM: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/07/10/c...
Change of plan
It feels like the beginning of an inflection point that plans for a gigantic data center are being abandoned after years of litigation trying to block it. The
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "International relations", sees the arrival of "Schrems III", when SCOTUS put US agencies under US president's control, plus a recap of talk this week at @cambskeptics.bsky.social, a rerun of April at @profchrisfrench.bsky.social : netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/07/03/i....
International relations
The US Supreme Court's decision this week in Trump v. Slaughter, giving the US president the power to control supposed-to-be independent agencies set up and fu
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
Facial recognition is entering classrooms and campuses. We are tracking its spread and impact on privacy rights. pvcy.org/frtmap
This week's net.wars, "Parting glances", bids farewell to Keir Starmer, the former human rights lawyer who presided over the Online Safety Act, age verification, restrictions on protest, and increased surveillance: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/06/26/p...,
Parting glances
So Britain will soon wave off yet another prime minister; they've been dropping like flies ever since the 2016 Brexit vote. At the Guardian, John Crace snarks t
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
Join tech writer @wendyg.bsky.social at the Blue Moon at 7:30pm on Tuesday June 30th for a pint and a full systems diagnostic of the hopes, fears, and hype currently gathered under the umbrella of “AI”. www.tickettailor.com/events/cambr...
This week's net.wars, "Banned", mulls the UK's planned social media ban: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/06/19/b...
Banned
Some policies are popular until people examine the details. This may be happening with social media bans like the one UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced t
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "Technology distinguishable from magic", notes the Munich court's ruling that Google is liable for its AI Overviews; visits Keir Starmer's demand for nudity-blocking phones; and tries to verify at Companies House: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/06/12/t...
Technology distinguishable from magic
This week, a regional court in Munich issued what may be a landmark decision: it ruled that Google is liable for the content of its "AI Overviews". The court wa
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "The Sutton effect", goes to the 25th Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, where researchers mull the costs of cybersecurity failures: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/06/05/t...
The Sutton effect
One of the enduring questions in cybersecurity is how much failures cost and who pays. Many companies see cybersecurity as a cost with no return; as in housekee
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "The sovereignty paradox", goes to Computers, Privacy, and Data Proetction 2026 #cpdp and finds a lot of discussions of European values: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/29/t...
The sovereignty paradox
The year since the 2025 Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection has made Europe more distinct as an entity. Two years ago, we were being chastised for paying in
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
I'm in Spanish!
Luis Alfonso Gámez@lagamez.eurosky.social · 2mo ago«’El movimiento escéptico está muerto’, me dijo alguien en algún momento de los últimos diez años. Me sorprendió, como creo que les sorprendería a la mayoría de los escépticos», recuerda @wendyg.bsky.social en su reflexión “Las muchas caras del escepticismo”. circuloesceptico.org/articulos/la...
This week's net.wars, "First, do no harm", visits the UK's latest attempt to centralize the nation's patient data into a single database: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/22/f...
First, do no harm
In the midst of the recent Labour leadership turbulence, on Wednesday May 13 Wes Streeting, who would resign from his position as the UK's health minister a day
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "The Arizona way of death", revisits a 1990s TV encounter with three immortals while reading Aleks Krotoski's new book, The Immortalists: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/15/t...
The Arizona way of death
Sometime in the late 1990s, I was asked to be a token skeptic on a TV show featuring three people who claimed they were immortal. The production team didn't t
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
#techgrumps 3.40 is now available for your listening pleasure... With the voices and grumpiness of @rnalexander.bsky.social @wendyg.bsky.social @eastmad.bsky.social From Zuckerberg's AI twin to plugin solar Its all in techgrumps 3.40 - Teletubbies vision of judge dredd rss.com/podcasts/tec...
techgrumps 3.40 - Teletubbies vision of judge dredd | Podcast Episode on RSS.com
Techgrumps 3.40AI round upAll BirdsSam Altman vs Elon Musk over OpenAIMocking Richard Dawkins:https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/05/richard-dawkins-ai-consciousness-anthropic-claude-opena...
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This week's net.wars, "The soul in the machine", considers Richard Dawkins' expressed belief that his interactions with Anthropic's Claude show that the chatbot is conscious: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/08/t...
The soul in the machine
One of the first things skeptics learn is to never assume that paranormal belief implies stupidity. Smart people believe questionable things all the time; intel
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "The railway and the balloon", goes to We Robot 2026, where law, culture, and robotics try to find common ground: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/01/t...
The railway and the balloon
Is AI more like a train or a hot air balloon? Veronica Paternolli and Ryan Calo asked at this year's We Robot. Nineteenth-century hot air balloons were notoriou
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "Intimacy capitalism", goes to the We Robot 2026 workshop day, and finds new things to worry about: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/04/24/i... #WeRobot #AI
Intimacy capitalism
Many non-human characteristics make AI attractive, Sue-Anne Teo said to open this year's We Robot: endless patience, long and detailed memory, and sycophancy. I
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
#Techgrumps 3.39 - Mythos only for the elite New techgrumps podcast is available with @rnalexander.bsky.social @wendyg.bsky.social @eastmad82.bsky.social @mskakapo.bsky.social and @cubicgarden.com rss.com/podcasts/tec... Available where ever you get podcasts! Picture not real / AI generated!
At Gathering4Gardner's YouTube channel, mathematician and juggler Colin Wright and I <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktPuBFIdQDE">talk about skepticism</a>.
This week's net.wars, "Long Island AI", calls the peak of AI mania: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/04/17/l...
Long Island AI
The peak of dot-com mania was identifiable even at the time: it was in January 2000, when AOL bought Time Warner for $183 billion. Peak podcast mania argiab;u c
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "Waste management", sees the planned obsolescence of early Kindles, Microsoft's "just for entertainment" Copilot, and AI-driven new cybersecurity threats: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/04/10/w...
Waste management
This week, Amazon announced it would cripple a bunch of older Kindle models. Users will be able to go on reading the books that are already stored on their devi
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
Ego: speaking next Monday eve, April 13, at Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub on "What We Talk About When We Talk About AI": sitp.online/sitp/greenwich @skeptic.org.uk @profchrisfrench.bsky.social
Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub - Skeptics in the Pub Online
Welcome to Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub! Next talk on 13/April: “What we talk about when we talk about AI” by Wendy Grossman Greenwich SitP is currently the only branch of SitP in South East London. ...
sitp.online
This week's net.wars, "The Silicon Valley chronicles", notes the likely pending deathe of Meta's Oversight Board and reviews the shift in Silicon Valley politics laid out in Jacob Silverman's book, Gilded Rage: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/04/03/t...
The Silicon Valley chronicles
We should have seen this coming. At Platformer, Casey Newton reports that Meta has discussed pulling funding for the Oversight Board after 2028 after already re
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
On the eve of #WeRobot2026, my updated list of summaries of all but one #WeRobot conferences back to its founding in 2012: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/03/18/a...
A short history of We Robot, 2026 edition
On the eve of We Robot 2026, here are links to my summaries of every year since 2012, the inaugural conference, except 2014, which I missed for family reasons.
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
Clearview argued that it should benefit from exceptions to data protection law meant for government law enforcement agencies. Judges disagreed. But now it’s appealing, so the fight is on again. privacyinternational.org/long-read/57...
Clearview and the long arm of the law
A tribunal in the UK has overturned a legal judgment about Clearview’s objectionable scraping of images of people’s faces from the internet.
privacyinternational.org
This week's net.wars, "Eating the web", watches Google, a creature of the open web, try to swallow the whole thing, and considers the potential far-reaching impact of this week's social media verdicts: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/03/27/e...
Eating the web
"Traffic to my blog has plummeted," a friend said recently. Over decades, he's built a thriving community, and his core users persist. But Google was crucial fo
netwars.pelicancrossing.net
This week's net.wars, "Turn left at the robot", goes to the Human-Robot Interaction conference and finds that in robots versus kids the kids win every time: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/03/20/t...,
Turn left at the robot
It's easy to forget, now that so many computer interfaces seem to be getting more inscrutable, that in the early 1990s the shift from the command line to graphi
netwars.pelicancrossing.net